Mobile telecommunications calls can be charged in one of two ways. Postpaid charging systems accumulate charges for a customer and send a bill to the customer on a monthly basis. Prepaid systems allow a customer to prepay for a certain number of minutes, or other parameter, and make calls against a balance record maintained in a prepaid system database of the carrier serving the customer; the balance is reduced as the customer makes calls and when the balance reaches zero the customer can no longer make calls based on the prepaid account. The mobile customer must purchase a recharge card to replenish his/her prepaid account. The most popular type of prepaid recharging card is a scratch card. The mobile customers can purchase the scratch cards from retailers or resellers. The scratch card has a face value and Personal Identification Number (PIN). The face value varies (such as $20, $50, $100 and $200). The scratch card PIN is a random number generated by the Recharge Card Management System (RCMS) and manufactured on the scratch card with a covering. The customer must scratch out the covering on the card to reveal the PIN. When scratch card batch is manufactured and distributed by the service provider to the reseller such as retailer, distributor, wholesaler or retail reseller this reseller can activate the batch before the card is sold to the end customer. When the end customer who purchased the scratch card and scratches out the PIN, he/she can use this PIN to replenish his/her mobile prepaid account.
There are many different ways to replenish the prepaid account.
(1) The end customer dials a 1-800 number to the service provider's prepaid system. An Interactive Voice Responder (IVR) will prompt the end customer to input the mobile phone number (if dialed from mobile handset, the mobile phone number automatically enters the system), and to select a prepaid account recharge from a menu prompt. The end customer then enters the PIN number. The prepaid system will use the received mobile phone number (subscriber ID) and PIN to validate the scratch card. It sends a validate query (with PIN) to the Recharge Card Management System (RCMS) which generated the scratch card batch; the RCMS stores all card information (include card batch number, serial number, PIN, status (new, activated, expired, used, etc), and card face value). RCMS receives the request from the prepaid system, validates the request against its database, if the card status is activated, the RCMS will return the response to the prepaid system with a return code (card is valid) and the card face value. The prepaid system will credit the face value amount to the end user prepaid account and play an announcement to the end customer (such as the recharge is completed, and a dollar amount is credit to your prepaid account). The prepaid system will also store an account lifecycle for the customer prepaid account (such as expiration date, recharge date). The RCMS will mark the card with this PIN as used so no future recharge with this PIN is allowed.
(2) A similar recharge can be conducted through reseller/retailer's terminals. The customer enters a mobile phone number and scratch PIN from Graphic User Interface (GUI) screen of the recharge system terminal. The recharge system will read the mobile phone number and scratch PIN, and send a query by any kind of interface to the prepaid system. The prepaid system validates the scratch card PIN with RCMS. If it is valid, the prepaid system receives the face value from the RCMS, the prepaid system credits the amount to the end user's prepaid account and also stores account lifecycle for the customer prepaid account (such as expiration date, recharge date). The RCMS will mark the card with this PIN as used so no future recharge with this PIN is allowed. The prepaid system sends a recharge result back to the reseller terminal; the end user can see the recharge result from a terminal or a printout.
(3) The RCMS (usually a third party system) will conduct the recharge validation when the end user inputs a mobile phone number and a scratch card PIN. The recharge system validates the scratch card directly with the RCMS and obtains the face value if the card is valid. The recharge system sends the end user mobile phone number and recharge face amount via any interface to the prepaid system. The prepaid system will credit the face amount to the end user's prepaid account and stores in the prepaid account a new lifecycle. The prepaid system returns recharge result back to the recharge system which acknowledges the end user.
(4) Customer Care System recharges. The end user can dial a 1-800 number to the customer care center (online help center) and provide a mobile phone number and scratch card PIN to a customer service representative (CSR). The CSR will fill in the subscriber ID (mobile phone number) and PIN in a recharge request to the prepaid system. The prepaid system will validate the scratch card with the RCMS and credit the recharge amount to the end user prepaid account, and return the result to CSR; or the CSR validates PIN with RCMS directly and obtains the validation response and card face value from RCMS. The CSR sends recharge amount to the prepaid system which credits the amount to the end user prepaid account.
After a recharge using a scratch card, the end user will have a positive prepaid account balance and is allowed to make phone calls.
A problem of the prior art is that there is not provided any arrangement for giving different resellers the ability to give a customer a greater number of minutes of service or call units for the same scratch card charge. In the prior art, all scratch card recharge will credit the card face value amount to subscriber prepaid account. Sometimes the prepaid system may add some bonus minutes to the subscriber's account as a recharge promotion. The recharge amount sometimes is converted into call units and stored in the subscriber prepaid account. However, the recharge amount will not affect the call rate—a dollar amount or call unit per minute which is pre-provisioned with the subscriber prepaid account as a class of services (COS) when the subscriber opens the prepaid account or when he/she purchase/register the mobile phone handset or requests a change in the COS with the service provider during the service period.
However, many service providers would like to provide end users a kind of promotion call rate which depends on the recharge scratch card type. This requests the prepaid system to adjust the credit amount vs. recharge amount (face value) to reflect a promotion call rate. For example, it might be desirable for subscriber A who has an account COS selection with a call rate $0.50/min. to use a promotional K-Mart recharge scratch card with face value $50 and promotion rate $0.25/min. When he/she does replenishment to the prepaid account, the prepaid system will adjust the credit amount by $100. The customer's call rate within the system is still $0.50/min. (there is no change of COS), but the credited amount indeed reflects a promotion rate $0.25/min. for the recharge card.
A problem of the prior art is that there is no satisfactory method of providing a flexible prepaid scratch charge card for authorizing varying charges for different recharge rate plans.